Every year, DISCOVER digs through reams of newspapers and gigabytes of Web sites to find the 100 most important and interesting science stories of the year. Here is the latest installment, chronicling everything from alien planets (#45) to "yeti" crabs (#86). You can alternatively browse through the stories by subject. Medicine and space are particularly packed, with each field placing 13 stories onto the list.
Also check out the results of our year-in-science poll, in which readers chose Pluto Demoted as the biggest story of the year.
100Saturn Sunburst The Cassini spacecraft captured an extraordinary backlit image of Saturn and its gossamer rings...
99Element 118 Debuts On the Periodic Table Chemists will soon have to make room on the periodic table for a new element discovered in October...
98Fat Vaccine Works in Rats In August, immunologist Kim Janda grabbed headlines with reports of a vaccine against obesity...
97DNA Boosts Panda Count DNA analysis of panda feces suggests there may be twice as many pandas as was previously thought...
96Strange Swirls Spotted at Venus's Pole Venus is Earth's near-twin in size and mass, yet bafflingly different in other particulars...
95Machines Learn How to Feel Engineers reported that they had developed a way to give robots a sense of touch...
94Tough Times for Tyrannosaur Teens Life was rough for teen tyrannosaurs, according to paleontologist Gregory Erickson...
93Renegade Planet Pair Defy Explanation A pair of celestial objects circling one another have fed a growing debate over the dividing line between planets and stars...
92Capacitors Could Replace Batteries Ultracapacitors could give electric cars new life...
91Cancer Morphs Into New Life-Form Robin Weiss has turned up clues about the origin of sexually transmitted cancer in dogs...
90Drillers Tap into Foundation of Earth's Crust Geologists successfully drilled into the bottom layer of the ocean's crust for the first time...
89Laser-Emitting Chips Promise Ultrafast Computers Researchers announced they had found a promising way to accelerate computer chips to the speed of light...
88Super-Ants Fly by Force of Mouth Super-ants fly by biting against the ground so hard that they shoot themselves into the air...
87Light Moves in Reverse Physicists at the University of Rochester have coaxed light into traveling backward...
86A Yeti Crab Discovered A furry-looking crustacean discovered on the floor of the South Pacific Ocean at a depth of 6,500 feet...
85Dodo's Lost World Resurrected While a few dodo bones and one skeleton remain in museums, they aren't enough to tell biologists exactly why or how the birds went extinct...
84Did Figs Beget Agriculture? New research has pegged the fig as the first crop...
83Nano Electrode Wires Neurons Researchers announced the creation of a device that can connect to an individual neuron...
82Secret Lakes Lie Under Polar Ice Scientists have found evidence of subglacial lakes and rivers far under the surface of Antarctica...
81Tut Jewel Formed By Asteroid Impact The central jewel in King Tutankhamen's pectoral gear may have been literally out of this world...
80New Monkey Genus Found in Tanzania Biologists added a new branch to our primate family tree this year...
79Worm Lives Without Guts Over the course of evolution, a bizarre little worm appears to have lost its mouth, guts, and excretory organs...
78Mongolian Ice Yields Scythian Mummy Last summer researchers recovered a 2,200-year-old Scythian mummy from permafrost...
77First Tree Genome Sequenced A team determined that the black cottonwood has 45,000 genes, roughly twice the number of genes that humans have...
76Old Beads Hint at Dawn Of Culture Grape-size shell beads dated between 100,000 and 135,000 years old are the world's oldest known jewelry...
75Astro-Hotel Launched Bigelow Aerospace last July launched Genesis 1, the first inflatable space station...
74Cochlea's Spiral Plays Surprising Role in Hearing Deep inside your ear, the spiral-shaped cochlea helps translate reverberations into neurological signals...
73Electrical Signals Help Direct Wound Healing Min Zhao announced that electricity is the dominant factor in wound healing...
72Source of Empathy Found Mirror neurons fire when you watch other people act...
71Anti-Repulsion Discovered This year physicists forced atoms to be bound by their mutual repulsion...
70Stroke Injury Shows New Way to Kick the Habit The brain damage caused by certain strokes may eliminate an addiction to nicotine...
69Weed's Weapon Revealed Garlic mustard's weapon is a chemical that kills soil fungi...
68Moss Sex Points To Precursor of Pollination Arthropods may act as go-betweens for moss procreation...
67Complex Organic Molecules Formed in Outer Space Astronomers have identified eight new complex molecules in space...
66Hobbit Wars Heat Up Evidence from 2006 has sharpened speculation about humanlike bones discovered in an Indonesian cave...
65Gay Influence Found Older brothers lead to more homosexual younger brothers...
64HIV Precursor Found in the Wild A team detected antibodies against the HIV-1 precursor in the scat of wild chimps...
63Chemistry Turns Straw Into Black Gold Researchers announced a technique for converting almost any source of carbon into synthetic diesel and gas...
62Biodiversity Aids Productivity Biological diversity helps make ecosystems stable and productive...
61Ancient Rain Settles Sierra's Age Geologists settled a dispute over the age of the Sierra Nevada range by studying gravel that was soaked with ancient rainwater...
60Polio's Return Traced to Lapses in India A 39-year-old man in Namibia tested positive for poliovirus, marking the country's first case in 10 years...
59Fossilized Frog Marrow Found Researchers in Madrid reported the first example of fossilized bone marrow...
58Why We Are Not Chimps Humans and chimpanzees are about 98 percent alike, yet the human brain is three times bigger and far more complex...
57Microbes Rule Marine Biodiversity Fill a one-liter bottle with seawater and you'll have gathered at least 25,000 different types of bacteria...
56Comet Dust Records Solar System Chaos One-third of a milligram of dust from comet Wild 2 landed on Earth last January...
55New Mouse Organ Found An immunologist at the University of Ulm in Germany reported that mice have two thymus organs...
54Peruvian Dig Uncovers First Western Observatory The Temple of the Fox, located in the Chillón Valley in Peru, probably served as a rough farmers' almanac...
53Low-Fat Diet A Bust? Cutting fat from the diet doesn't significantly reduce the incidence of breast or colorectal cancer, heart disease, or stroke...
52Storms May Be Getting Worse Is global warming leading to more extreme weather?
51Ice Volcanoes Seen On Saturnian Moon NASA's Cassini probe showed a geyser shooting jets of water and fine icy particles hundreds of miles into space...
50New Letters Explore Einstein's Family Life A cache of letters reveal a complicated picture of the man...
49Power of Hallucinogenic Mushrooms Revealed People who tripped ranked the experience as one of the most meaningful in their life...
48Nearby Universe Mapped Astrophysicists have produced the most detailed full-sky map of the nearby universe...
47Cesareans Boost Death Risk for Baby Neonatal mortality rate for cesareans is nearly three times the rate for vaginal delivery...
46Oldest Writing In New World Found Workers digging in Mexico unearthed the oldest script ever found in the Western Hemisphere...
45Alien Planets Get Smaller, Fatter, Faster, and Hotter This year ushered some of the oddest extrasolar planets ever found...
44Stem Cells Reverse Parkinson's in Rats Embryonic stem cells helped rats suffering from Parkinson's-like symptoms...
43IQ Linked to Brain Structure In smarter children, the brain cortex grows quickly and then thins quickly...
42Milk Drinkers More Likely To Have Twins Women who consume milk have twins more than twice as often as do vegan moms...
41New Tomb Found In Valley of the Kings Archaeologists uncovered the first new tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings since 1922...
40New Dinosaur King Rears Its Head Spinosaurus measured as much as a dozen feet longer than the largest known T. rex...
39TB Makes a Scary Comeback An outbreak of an extremely drug-resistant strain of TB is raising international alarm...
38Lab Cooks Up a Healthier Pig Scientists engineered pigs with omega-3 fatty acids, the same ones in fish...
37Little Lucy Found A 3-year-old female Australopithecus afarensis, the oldest remains of a child hominid ever found...
36Nano Risks Worry Scientists The cleaning product caused respiratory distress in more than 100 consumers last spring...
35Melting Permafrost May Rev Up Global Warming Defrosting could release nearly 1,000 gigatons of carbon and hasten global warming...
34New Tests Help Chemotherapy Hit the Mark New tests can dramatically improve the odds of choosing the right drugs...
33Looks Can Kill Black defendants are more likely to receive the death penalty. It's also how black you look...
32Invisibility Cloak Invented! The "first practical realization" of a cloak of invisibility...
31British Clinical Drug Trial Goes Spectacularly Awry Six of the test subjects wound up with massive organ failure...
30Engineered Cotton An Environmental Bust Farmers are using just as much pesticide as they did before...
29DDT is Back WHO says DDT is the cheapest and most effective way to prevent malaria...
28New HIV Drugs Three new categories of anti-HIV drugs are in the pipeline...
27Vaccine for Cervical Cancer The Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine for cervical cancer...
26Orangutans Face Genetic Doom The endangered primate had a steep population decline...
25First Face Transplant Attaching the nose, chin, cheeks, and lips of a 46-year-old brain-dead woman...
24Bird Flu Risk Explained The deep infection makes it difficult to spread the avian flu virus...
23Mouse Breast Grown in Lab To make a breast, all you need is a single cell...
22 Methane Rain Falls Mainly on Titan's Plain The Huygens probe made a splat. "It landed in mud"...
21World's Largest Marine Preserve Created The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument, larger than all U.S. national parks combined...
20Global Warming Leaves Its Marks Sixteen places where global warming is apparent...
19World Trade Center Fallout Fails Health Test A report revealed widespread, persistent respiratory illness among rescue and recovery workers...
18Drugs Aim to Silence Bad Genes RNA interference helped launch an entirely new class of drugs into trials...
17Man Recovers From Near-Coma After Two Decades For 19 years after a car accident, Terry Wallis lingered speechless...
16Quantum Teleportation Leaps Toward Reality Scientists have teleported information between light and atoms...
15Stem Cell Setbacks Inspire New Methods Many scientists have focused on new methods of creating stem cell lines without destroying embryos...
14Fast-Food Fats Prove Health Hazard Small daily amounts of trans fats cause weight gain, atherosclerosis, and insulin resistance...
13Probe Snaps Baby Picture of the Cosmos A detailed snapshot of what the universe was like as a trillionth-of-a-second-old newborn...
12Who Failed New Orleans? Six thousand pages describing engineering lapses, design failures, and decades of neglect...
11Neural Implant Empowers Paralyzed Man Picking up brain signals with implanted electrodes and using them to control devices...
10Pluto Demoted Pluto now falls under the quaint designation "dwarf planet"...
9Ancient Fish Fills Missing LinkTiktaalik fills in the transition between fish and the first animals to walk onto land...
8Fundamental Problem Solved After 100 Years The proof of the Poincaré conjecture is the math story of the whole 21st century...
7Scientists Get Inside the Mind (and Genes) of the Neanderthal Two studies offer new perspectives on the nature and fate of our nearest relative...
6Biologists Crack Open Life's Tool Kit Intelligent design became a scientific reality thanks to synthetic biology...
5RNA Flouts Rules of Heredity In blatant violation of the laws of genetics, mice inherit their parents' coloring without inheriting the genes...
4The World Melts and the Masses Mobilize "Oops, something is happening now, climate is changing really fast"...
3Cosmic Collision Brings Dark Matter Into View A violent collision has turned up the most direct evidence yet of dark matter...
2Tissue Engineering Triumph: Lab-Grown Bladders Artificial bladders can be grown from a patient's own cells and successfully implanted...
1Alternative Energy The turning point when alternatives to fossil fuels finally hit the mainstream...
